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Christians ‘must be allowed their opinions’

Amy and Daniel McArthur, whose family run six bakery branches, refused to make a pro-gay marriage cakeLIAM MCBURNEY/PA

The Christian owners of a bakery who refused to make a pro-gay marriage cake should not have been forced to curtail their business as a result, Northern Ireland’s top lawyer said.

The McArthur family, who run the Ashers chain of bakeries, temporarily stopped offering products bearing messages after a number of “vexatious” requests but have returned to business as usual, a barrister for the company said.

The family is seeking to overturn a court judgment that found they acted unlawfully by rejecting an order placed in 2014 by Gareth Lee, an LGBT activist, based on their religious conviction that the slogan was sinful. Three senior judges have reserved their verdict after a four-day hearing at the Court of Appeal in Belfast.

John Larkin, QC, the…

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